Thinking - Pest control

Once when I was eighteen years old or so, I owned a ghetto-blaster style sound system.

Which is interesting enough as it stands.

But to add interest to the narrative, I once saw a remarkable thing occur upon it's top surface.

A cockroach walked across it.

I realize at this point that this is still not the gripping tale promised by it's title, but there's more...

I rolled up some junk mail* vouchers for fast food and furniture, and just as I was about to kill it, it died.

It just died right there in front of me while I watched. I presume it died of old age. I have a slight allergy to bug spray type product (I get hay fever from them) so it wasn't because of a surface spray or anything.

I'm guessing it didnt die of a heart attack or anything, because I've notice in squashed cockroaches there's no sign of a heart of anything else meaningful.

Just mush.

I always assumed they dont have organs, just soup, and something that makes their legs twitch to give their famous ability to scurry.

Here's my impression of an actual X-ray of the mush inside a healthy, living cockroach.

Pretty convincing stuff.







Anyway...

The thing just up and died right in front of me just seconds before I was going to kill it.

I was going to rob it of those last few seconds of life.

It changed the way I saw killing things for a while.

Until the ant incident a few months later, but thats a story for another day.

That's it really.

I just thought you should know.


120 Things in 20 years thinks it may be the only person on earth to have seen an insect die of old age.

*In order to take a relevant photo of something rolled up, I just went out to get the daily batch of junk mail that we have hand delivered to our door every day. Today for the first time in our history here, there has been no delivery. When we lived in the country we didnt get junk mail, so we still find it culturally interesting and worth a read. Before we lived in the country, I lived in the city, so received junk mail, and something called the Messenger Post, which is a free newspaper (looking thing) that someone sees fit to throw at every house in South Australia, and is typically used to help fill recycling bins, and wrapping fish heads. In fact it was most likely a copy of the Messenger Post news paper that I would have rolled up on the day.

Aquaponics - Pest control flooding

One of the excelent by products of growing your vegitables and herbs in water and media filled containers, is your ability to get rid of pests.

Before I replant my grow bed, I flood it for a half hour or so and see what's been living in my media.

Lots of beasties only come out at night, and hide during the heat of the day.

Especially slugs.





Almost impossible to track down in a conventional garden without just dumping poison everywhere, a flooded grow bed quickly brings them all to the surface, and climbing the walls to get to high ground.

Then it's simply a case of collecting them and feeding them to the fish.

I've been thinking of approaches to an aquaponics based snail farm, (I guess Helioponics) and that in turn has me thinking about  a growbed that you could flood deep enough to introduce the fish to.

It's also led to some thoughts on snail barriers.


120 Things in 20 years has be thinking about thinking about things

Aquaponics - Friend or foe

I'm constantly faced with a dilemma. What to do with the bugs I meet, either within my system, or knocking at the door.

My current policy is to let everyone in except caterpillars, snails, and slugs. What ever they are if I see them, I put them into my growhouse, or at the very least let them stay.

It can get a little tricky when you meet someone like this, and have no idea if the next day, your garden will be totally destroyed, but it keeps things interesting.

I actually think this fellow might be a lacewing larva.

That could be a good thing because I think the grown up version eats aphids.

This policy of mine may well end in disaster, but so far everything seems to be holding to some kind of balance.

In the first few weeks I was nearly over run by aphids. I figured this was because I was basically practising mono-culture in my bug population. The aphids were in plague. Now there is a stack of assorted beasties, and everything seems to have settled down.

The problem with getting rid of the aphids might be that there is nothing left for the predators to eat. I have a feeling, that having a bit of everything might be a better way.

Except caterpillars, snails, and slugs.

I hate caterpillars, snails, and slugs.

They eat too much, and without a mega species like birds, I feel I need to be the caterpillar, snail, and slug predator.

I should get a bird.

Aquaponics - Sticky bug traps

I've just had an idea.

I posted before on a design for a self cleaning sticky pest trap, but I think I have a better idea. 

Sticky traps are small squares of very sticky plastic that you can hang in or near your garden beds. 

They attract flying insects by being attractive, and keep them there by being sticky. The ones I've seen come in either blue or green, and I think maybe yellow. Once they get covered in bugs, or lose their stickiness they are thrown away and become landfill.

But I got to thinking that spiders might do a better job. 

Spider webs are superior to store bought sticky traps in at least three ways...

1. They clean their own traps.

2. They automatically regulate their number, and the number of pests, by convivially feasting, breeding, and moving on when the task is complete.  

3. They already exist. 

I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Spider webs are the perfect self cleaning sticky trap. 

Thanks nature.

Now all I need to do is figure out a way to make them live where I want, and to do my bidding.

I will be a spider, man master.

They will call me....

Bug boy.

.

Aquaponics - My million new friends

It seems I'm about to have a million new visitors to my garden. I hope they like me.

All the baby spinach are covered in what looks a lot like eggs.

There is some, slim chance they are something good, but I'm told by various people that they might be snail eggs, or slugs eggs. If they are slug eggs, I'm going to have to do something drastic.

I think our snails lay eggs underground, and I met a slug couple under a rock that I moved. So I'm thinking slugs, but the eggs are tiny. Perhaps 0.2 millimetre. That's a baby spinach leaf, so these things a really small.

I don't like slugs so much.

Kind of, too... sluggy.

I don't even like the name.

Slug. Needs more g's

Anyway...

I found this interesting looking guy that I think might be a black soldier fly. If it is I'm very happy.

Black soldier fly or BSF, are a fly that has little in common with the house fly. For one thing they don't eat. They are really just the mating and egg laying retirement, of the BSF larva that eat compost.  They don't bother people and, as far as I know, don't do any harm. They are just obsessed with compost. I know some people like that, and they tend toward the harmless end of the social spectrum as well.

BSF larva make great food for fish. If I do have some, I might try to breed some. Perhaps I already have. They might be the ones laying the eggs.


Whatever they are, there's going to be a lot of them.

I hope they're friendly.

[edit from the future - They're not friendly. My hatched bugs look like aphids]

Aquaponics - Pest control automatic fish feeder

I have an idea.

This one was inspired by irritating people, and just how much my fish enjoy eating bugs. It  also involves a deer scarer, and some green plastic.

There are these things you can buy that attract bugs to them because they are a shade of green or blue that fools bugs into thinking they are going to be even more yummy than your veggies. The green ones no doubt are a leaf colour that's attractive, and I'm guessing, the blue ones are some ultraviolet thing.

Some bugs see into the ultra violet bit of the spectrum, or so I'm told by TV, and its never been wrong about anything before.

But the point is they are sticky. When your sticky green square is covered in bugs, you bin it, and get another.

My plan is to get some green stuff that isn't sticky, and point a deer scarer at it so that every minute or so, it suddenly pours water over the green plastic and washes any bugs into the fish tank. I was thinking of perhaps bending something green into a PVC pipe that sits up near the grow bed, but empties into a fish bistro below.

Less bugs and happy fish. A win, win, lose situation everyone except bugs can enjoy*.

I have no idea if it will work, because I have no idea how long the bugs would hang around on a bit of green plastic if it wasn't sticky. But I suspect, that if the little deer scarer washed it often enough, it would work. It might also be the kind of thing a moth might like to lay eggs on, and I'm guessing my fish would enjoy some moth caviar every now and again. At least I'm sure they would enjoy it more than my plants do.

I have no idea if it will work, and even less of any idea as to how I might tell if it has worked, but I think I might make one, and find out.



*I actually quite like bugs, and appreciate their motivations, but I maintain, that their freedom to express their buggyness ends where my lunch begins.